Sunday, 24 January 2010

Football Returns... at last!

Saturday afternoon football - Belper Town 2 - 1 Quorn in the Unibond League Division One South. First game we've been to since 15th December and it has seemed like forever.

Wasn't a classic by any means but that is back to back wins for the team (see previous post - we beat Lincoln Utd on Tuesday evening although me and the Duchess didn't go to that one.)

Sad news was that Andy Rushbury suffered a badly broken arm in the first couple of minutes. I believe he spent Saturday night in Nottingham hospital and an operation to pin and plate the bones was scheduled for Sunday. Get well soon Andy. Big praise too for Katie Pilgrim - the Belper physio and also to the Quorn physio (another female) for the professional way they looked after him until the paramedics arrived.

Our Katie - not only a great Physio - we reckon she's also the prettiest!

I took the camera and there are one or two shots worth displaying but I'll leave it to the Master - the "Snapper Album" is here:

The referee was also a lady - and to be fair - she had a smashing game - one of the best officials we've seen at the Meadow I think. She stood no nonsense from the players or managers and could be heard, on more than one occasion, telling assorted "moaners" on the pitch to "Shut your mouth and get on with the game!"

"Well Done" Ms Massey.....

One of the best sights of the day for me was Mark Barnard (Barney to the fans) joining in the full pre-match warm up. He suffered a bad knee ligament injury toward the end of last season and has been recuperating for months. I had a quick chat with him and he says he had a full training session earlier in the week and hopes to be available for selection in about 3 weeks. He has bags of league experience as a professional and was a key member of the promotion chasing squad last season. We certainly missed him in the run-in and the play-off final.

The rest of my "Birthday week" was fantastic. As I said - Mark and Dvora arrived last Sunday and we did a "bit of business" on Monday (He is redesigning the web site for our sister company in Dronfield so we went to meet my boss.)

I had booked Thursday and Friday off work so we could spend some time with them and it turned out really well. We dined at the Bowshaw Inn on Wednesday evening before returning home to open Christmas presents which had been "on hold" since they had to abort their planned visit at the "real" Christmas.

Thursday evening (my actual 60th birthday) was a fantastic evening - Mark had organised a meal at TGI Friday with some close and very special friends. It was a great night - despite the fact I had to wear two "I am 60" badges - one a little flashing effort which declared that althougn I was 60 - I was still swinging! I forgave them all that though because we had a truly memorable time!

Friday was spent in recovery - from over-eating rather than from drink cos I only had 2 G&T's - and we're now back at Sunday evening and another Monday draws ever closer..... can't wait (NOT!)